Wonderful News

Wonderful news for me and my novel, Soot. I've just been notified that Soot was accepted for local author consignment at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, PA. The Midtown Scholar Bookstore has been named as one of "America's Great Independent Bookstores". As if that wasn't enough, it was voted "Simply the Best" Independent Bookstore in the region for 12 years and counting. So grateful that Soot landed on top of the pile of books seeking that honor.

Good morning Fellow Writers and Scribblers, Are you interested in spending a few hours this Fall adding to your writer's crafty tool box? Join me at RACC for a few Saturdays for a discussion that I will lead. Discover Creative Writing Saturdays; September 28, October 5, 12, 19, 26. 9:00 - 11:30 AM. Emphasis will be on creating believable characters. There will be in class writing each week as well as feedback on your writing. Please bring a notebook or your laptop. Register on line: www.racc.edu/Register.pdf Register by phone: 610-607-6235 or 610-607-6231 Register in person: Berks Hall room 107, RACC 10 South Second Street Reading Hope to see you there. Mickey Getty, Author The Junk Lottery

Tell me a few of your favorite things.

Imagining myself preparing for an interview by The New York Times Book Review for my best selling Novel, SOOT.
My Name is Mickey Getty, unless you talk to sisters, then it is Adelaide. My DOB? classified. SIGN: Libra; EYES: blue; HAIR: yes;
A few of my favorite things:
TV SHOW: Survivor
SCREENSAVER: imagining possibilities; MUSIC: classical/jazz; FOOD: all of it and shellfish for desert; DRINK: water and wine, the stuff miracles are made of; CANDY: dark chocolate; : married >48 yrs. (Now you can guess my true hair color);
GUILTY PLEASURE: not telling; VIDEO GAME: bridge with real living in-person people;
BEST FRIEND: self; INSPIRATION: a snow highlighted red cardinal on a winter-bare branch if it isn't witnessing a purely unselfish act; HERO: a friend who has died from ALS;
MOVIE: Despicable Me until I see The Kids Are All Right; ACTOR: Annette Bening, Dame Judi Dench, and that hunk, Pierce Brosnan; WRITER: Anne Tyler, Harper Lee and oh so many more; POET:Don La Branche, Mary Oliver,Karen Blomain, Yeaats, more;
ARTIST: Barbars Thun, Andrew Wyeth,Sharon Mc Ginley, Georges-Pierre Seurat,Birdie Zoltan, Monet, Kevin Brett and more at the Gogglworks Center For The Arts; Pastime: daydreaming about my characters, I do that more than writing about them.
SPORT: grandchildren (ever play pirates with a 8-year-old?);
FAVORITE CITY: Paris; FAVORITE REGION: wherever I am; E-MAIL FOR FANS: AMGauthor@msn.com Because after the review hits the Times there will be fan mail;
FLOWER: daffodil; PET: Lady Bug and Licorice; VEHICLE: whatever gets me there; COMPUTER: may be second best friend, maybe not;
SOFTWARE: a kiss; COFFEE or TEA?: both; CHOCOLATE, STRAWBERRY, or VANILLA?: Cherry Garcia;
DEFINITION OF MYSELF: evolving, patient, persistent, nonjudgmental, playful.

Spring

At last, SPRING is showing its self.The buds on the pear trees are plumper every day.

The sparrows are dancing around, flirting. Eastern bluebirds who have been shivering in secluded places, appearing only when desperate for a snack, perch every day on my hanging planter hook. If I don't soon clear out the old stuff from their house, they'll move on.

Green tips of this and that are pushing through winter debris. The air,the sunlight have a distinct spring-like quality. It's time for new beginnings.

The Junk Lottery will have new beginnings now that I have my publishing rights back. It's a good story and has deserved a wider readership. Soot, my latest, is as ready as the pear trees to burst forth with new life.

Next week's writing conference, The Write Stuff, in Allentown, PA will spark the creation of another novel, and stories, maybe publishing opportunities, new friendships, new ways of thinking about everything.

Happy Spring.

Why do you write?

I write to find out what I really think and feel (my journal); I write to share and memorialize emotions, wonder and soul trips (my poetry); I write to exercise my imagination and courage (my fiction).
— Mary Karen Burke, Mohegan Lake, NY

I found this quote on The International Women's Writing Guild events page and thought it was lovely.

I write because I want to explore and liberate women's voices and my own in the process.

Why do you write.

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Thanks a bunch.

Avoidance??

This historical YA fiction is a challenge. Historical events must happen at specific times. They are wrapped in fictional events, those imagined in order to give my character the life I can't find in the history books. So i need to be sure I haven't included a character in an event when s/he has already been killed off. I have 28 chapters and I keep rearranging them.

I waste so much time flipping thru chapters looking to see if Sweeney is still alive in the current writing. Has Johnny been born, yet? When did Bridie marry Tim and how old was she?

I have notes of course. And notes about my notes. there are lots of scratching out old dates, ages and writing in new, which gets revised. What a mess! I date the notes and scratchings, but I cross out the dates when I change something and redate it. But still, it gets messy, and unreliable.

So, I've been learning Excel 2007. I am putting each chapter on the rows. The columns hold important info like chapter title & date. which characters are in that chapter, which have been killed off or had something significant happen to them. I include POV, # of words, # of pages, if I used an epitaph, the ages of important characters and a brief summary. When I'm finished, I will no linger have to flip thru unsightly notes or chapter pages.

My question: Is this writing or avoidance?

The darned Voki skipped town. I can't figure out how to get her posted onto this blog. Maybe she refused to sign on because I've been an infrequent blogger. One of my intentions for 2010 is to become a better blogger and a better facebooker.

I have signed up for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group annual conference Write Stuff. One of the several exciting parts of the conference is a two day workshop "How to Plot Like The Pros" with James N. Frey. Future blogs will include tips I learn from Frey.

If you're interested in seeing the events offered look up GLVWG The Write Stuff 2010 Conference.

Tell you about my agent pitch next time. Happy writing!

Mickey's Murky Meanderings

Mickey's Murky Meanderings

See my new Voki, if I can ever get the dern thing posted. Where is it???

Critics of all sorts

Critics of all sorts.
Everyone’s a critic. My husband’s family had a fix for this: He who criticizes does. Sort of like Put your money where your mouth is. But, sometimes the only thing critics do is be critical. Don’t get me wrong. My novel, The Junk Lottery, is all the better for some specific and detailed criticism (the comment, “I liked that scene/chapter/book,” or the opposite, doesn’t work for me) from insightful readers who participate in the story as opposed to searching for errors. You know what I mean? A sentence doesn’t always have to be complete. A character can use poor grammar in her speech. And if there is a bleepity bleep error that squeezes through the cracks, so what. The author may be human, not a Rule Robot.
I can’t ignore the fact that there are errors in the Junk Lottery or the ache in my heart when I think about that.

A word about words

I confess to being a novice blogger. This is the first blog I’ve written. Worse yet, I have only just begun to read blogs. EJ Angel’s blew me out of the water. It is an act too hard to follow, so I won’t try. Neither will I attempt to be a Daily Koz or a Wonkette, the DC gossip, who shows a photo of the flag hanging upside down, half mast. “The half mast being for the Veterans, the upside down for “the Panicked, Gtown Republican Hill Staffers desperately sending their resumes to lobbying organizations, think tanks, and consulting firms.” (Thought I may have a photo or two of my pets, both two legged and four legged.) In fact, I won’t get into gossip at all, unless I become exceedingly incensed over an accidental exposure to something Paris Hilton.

This blog will be like a conversation in my living room with my favorite people: my eighteen-year-old grand daughter; a conservative, Christian friend; another who claims to be an atheist; my Jewish writer friend; a gay guy I adore; my son’s Black house-mate; my Cuban son-in-law; my liberal neighbor and another who blabs everything she hears. You get the idea? I love them all and do not want to offend them. The only one not invited into my living room, is the highly critical person who takes everything out of context to the detriment of the subject/object of discussion. You got it? Nothing insensitive, hurtful, or unfit. The world according to me.

Another thing, this blog will never be perfect. Words may be misspelled, grammar may be garbage, thoughts may be toppled, reasoning may be unreasonable. Hey! I’m learning, and I’m not going to be all uptight about it. Deal with it.

One final word about words. I notice there is blog jargon. Blogroll is one word I learned today. So visit my blog and add a word or so to help me build a blog dictionary.

Misery is a sinus infection

Misery is a sinus infection. But there are benefits to being out of comission for a while. Yesterday I pulled off my book shelf something I haven't read for a long time: Jorge Luis Borges Collected Fictions. When I first read this author I moaned and groaned. Some fellow moaners and groaners, upon reading this posting, will roll their disbelieving eyes, maybe even scream and yell. Back then were were forced to read: an assignment for a writing workshop. And we were assigned some of his more shall we say imaginative stories. Kind of out there.

The Garden of Forking Paths, if I remember correctly, was urreal. At the top of Death and the Compas, I had scribbled "I feel like I have accomplished a great feat by finishing and understanding this story." I also had underlined words and squeezed in their meaning: a dictionary (English and Spanish at least) and reference books at hand were a requirement for Reading Borges.) As I recall, in the end I decided I would read him again.

I have found the foreward to his Brodie's Report very incouraging for writers, which I have the audacity to call myself. Let me quote: "Incredible as it may seem, there are certain punctilious men and women who act as a sort of 'trivia police.' They will note for example, Martin Fierro would have talked about a bag of bones, not a sack, and they will ctiticize (perhaps unfairly, perhaps not) the golden-pink coat of a certain horse famous in our literature." Borges did not let that stop him from being free to be Borges, so why should I let the ever present critics stop me from being Mickey Getty.

My favorite book, the one I am reading in my photo, The Junk Lottery, written by me. And by no means in the same league with Borges, though my writing can not but grow because of him

Mickey's Murky Meanderings

Swarming into this murky blogosphere after holding my nose and plunging feet first, I find myself groping along, breast-stroking, frog-kicking in these unclear waters, looking for thoughts that have somehow lost themselves. Should I be surprised? Not really. That is exactly what happens when I plunge into the keyboard with the resolution for a scene I've imagined.